The usual propaganda is in full swing; there is no help and never has been any for the small farmer. All this big talk about cheap fertiliser being imported, more than likely by the Fersan Fertiliser Company. It would be interesting to know who owns that company.

Doomsday has finally arrived for the small coffee farmers and, indeed, the coffee industry of Jamaica. Coffee production has been on a steep decline, and with the Government's attitude it can only get worse. By offering a $2,000 voucher to the farmers for the purchase of fertiliser, our Government has issued a clear warning to the small coffee farmers. 'Stay out of coffee farming'. Stay away from farming, period; thus, adding hundreds more to the already bulging unemployment line and the poor small farmer gets no severance pay.

The price of fertiliser has risen by 410 per cent in the past three years. In the same period, a price increase of 9.4 per cent was doled out to coffee farmers. A 50 per cent increase, though barely adequate, would be more realistic, and with the price of Jamaican coffee on the world market, the coffee industry can easily afford this.

Greed is the primary cause of the present world financial crisis, and if Parliament has not voted against it, I believe that the island of Jamaica is still in this world. It is a waste of time, energy and money to try and grow coffee without using fertiliser and pesticide. The average small farmer's three-acre plot requires 12 bags of fertiliser for the year; at $5,186 per bag plus the necessary insecticide. Cheap? By whose standard? The small farmers simply can't afford it. The banana industry, the sugar cane, the cocoa industry, now the coffee.

May God help us! We coffee farmers are all past the running age.

I am, etc.,

GERALD A HEDMANN

PO Box 207

Morant Bay

St Thomas